How Much Do You Need To Earn To Afford Rent In Louisiana?

If you pay rent in Louisiana you know that the struggle is real, but after looking at these numbers it's a little bit more real than I was thinking.

The above map was made by the National Low Income Housing Coalition to show just how much someone needs to earn to afford rent in each state. When you think about the nation-wide minimum wage being set at $7.25 an hour, these numbers are pretty surprising.

And before anyone yells at me because this map is from 2016, yes, I know. But the minimum wage is the same, and I have a feeling these numbers are still pretty similar in 2017.

According to the NLIHC, in order to afford a two-bedroom rental unit in Louisiana you would have to be making $15.81 an hour, that's more than double minimum wage. And, yes, that seems reasonable if you think about a two-bedroom house or apartment for a dual-income family, but that's not always the case. That means when you factor in the "30% rule" --you spend 30% of your income on rent-- a person or family would need to bring in roughly $32,000 a year. A person working 40 hours a week on minimum wage makes a little over $15,000 a year.